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How Do Experts Find Hidden Mold?

If you have noticed a mold smell in a commercial building in Wichita Falls, TX, but do not see any signs of visible mold, hidden mold may be present. A fungus smell or mildew smell can be one of the most reliable indicators of the presence of mold that cannot be seen on surfaces. If this odor is present but you cannot find any evidence of mold, the next step is to contact a professional mold testing and clean-up service and stop searching on your own. If you disturb a colony while looking for hidden mold, it can be easy to spread spores and worsen the problem.

Experts rely on several tools and methods to locate hidden mold including:

These methods may vary in effectiveness depending on the length of time since water damage created conditions conducive to mold growth. If a commercial property has recently experienced flooding or a severe leak, it is a good idea to contact a mold testing, clean-up and remediation service as soon as you suspect that mold may be growing. Mold can quickly develop on drywall, masonry or ceiling tiles that have been exposed to moisture. Some of these methods are more reliable once the source of the leak has been addressed but while there is still evidence of water damage.

If you are experiencing a persistent mildew smell or mold smell in a commercial property in Wichita Falls, TX, without any visible indications of mold growth, you should contact a reputable mold testing and clean-up service as soon as possible. These specialists can identify the source of a fungus smell and use the most effective tools and methods to confirm whether mold is present and start the clean-up process.

For more information, call us at 940-263-1550.

Get The Facts About Mold Growth After Flooding

Flooding from broken pipes can cause massive amounts of damage if not cared for properly. Water damage can ruin flooding and sheetrock, leading to extensive repairs that may be expensive. The longer water is left unattended, the more damage it can cause, so the water cleanup process should be done quickly and efficiently.

Assessing the Damage

Damage from a broken pipe may be limited to a single room or, if left undetected for several days, could spread throughout an entire floor. To understand exactly needs to be done, it is important to remove any remaining water with the help of a sump or a trash pump and then thoroughly examine the damaged area. There are two types of damage to look for:

1. Water damage. This type of destruction involves any damage to the structure of your home from the flood. It includes ruined wood flooring, carpet, sheetrock, and insulation, among other structural components.

2. Secondary damage. Unlike other types of damage, this type of problem may not be visible without a thorough investigation. Warm, moist environments can become a breeding ground for mold, mildew, and bacteria, so these fungi and pathogens thrive under wet carpet and in porous materials. In many cases, removing mold is more difficult than repairing structural damage.

Calling a Professional

Not only is repairing and restoring your home from flooding often difficult and time-consuming, but fixing secondary damage often requires the help of a qualified restoration company. Household cleaning products may not be strong enough to remove mold, and thoroughly disinfecting the area is necessary for safety. Call for help quickly to reduce the amount of damage caused by flooding.

In many cases, having broken pipes is difficult to handle on your own. After assessing the damage, calling a company for the water cleanup process may be a good idea. To reduce the impact of water damage, the issue should be dealt with quickly and efficiently. Visit http://www.SERVPROwichitafalls.com for more information on water damage.

Dealing With Fire and Water Damage

This may come as a surprise to you, but fire damage may not be your biggest concern when a fire strikes your home. In order to put the fire out, your local fire company uses a lot of water. While this sounds like a great idea at the time, all that water can cause damage to areas of your home not affected by the fire directly. This is why it’s important to examine all areas of your home after a fire for damage, even those places where the fire didn’t reach.

Unexpected Water Damage

The amount of water a fire department uses to put out your house fire can easily exceed one thousand gallons. That’s a lot of water for the structure of your house and your belongings to absorb in a short amount of time. In addition, if the fire is hot enough, some of that water gets converted to steam, which can penetrate areas the liquid water may not be able to reach. This is why your home can suffer significant water damage in addition to fire damage when a fire occurs.

Damage From Fire Hoses

Firefighters have one goal when they arrive at your house fire: to put out the fire as quickly as possible. To do this, they use powerful hoses to deliver the water into your home. While a fire hose is an efficient way to deliver a huge amount of water to a confined area in a short period of time, they can also cause damage to your home when dragged through rooms.

Fire damage isn’t the main problem you deal with after a fire at your North Texas home. Unfortunately, you may discover that smoke and water damage are also serious problems that need resolving in the fire’s aftermath. Fortunately, there exist fire restoration professionals who can help you recover your home and restore it to its former glory. Visit www.SERVPROwichitafalls.com for more information on fire and water damage.

Why Professional Storm Damage Restoration is Important

While we can control many things in life, we may control natural calamities like wind damage, river flooding, hurricane damage, ice damage, ground water penetration, ice dams and much more. The weather system is dynamic and within a split second, it can cause massive roof damage, frozen pipes, and ice damming. More often, these natural events bring about huge impacts like flooding. At this point let us narrow down to storm damage and how you can seek the help of experts with flood pumps to help you with storm remediation.

What is a Storm Damage?

Firstly, it comes as a result of a severely troubled state of the atmosphere resulting in extreme weather conditions. Sometimes, a storm can be accompanied by rain, hail falls, and ice damming. Storms can cause damages including roof damage, wind damage, ice damage, hail damage, and roof damage which further causes roof leak.

Some storms could be less severe while others are violent, for instance, a hurricane. The resulting hurricane damage can cause massive property losses. Other damages related to storms include the creation of ice dams, flood waters, river flooding, frozen pipes from ice formation, roof leaks, wind damage, and ground water.

Effects of Storm Damage

Storms come with impacts so big. Severe storms can cause hurricane damages, flood water, ice damage, and frozen pipes. Your entire home could suffer roof damage that blows away your entire or part of your roof resulting in a roof leak. There's no way you can live in a house with a broken roof, so roof repair needs to be done as soon as possible.

Another problem could be hail damage which results from hail storms and can seriously destroy many properties. Also, storms could come with falling ice which creates ice damage in terms of ice dams. Ice damming is quite risky as it can destroy property or kill animals such as pets, not forgetting human beings.

We have already mentioned that storms can result in lots of flood water, and you need a storm remediation company with a powerful flood pump to carry out the water restoration and home restoration. River flooding or ground water can also cause massive property damage if storm remediation process is not expedited. The effect of storms includes property damage inform of rusting, rotting, and mold growth. If not worked on soon, such damage could result to adverse effects that would require high amounts of money for storm restoration and home restoration. It can leave people bankrupt, especially if they are not signed up for storm related insurance premiums.

Storms and electricity have never been friends. These damages can bring down utility supply lines and pose further danger to life and property. When people suffer storm effects, storm remediation and home restoration should be started as quickly as possible to prevent further damages. Roof repair and elimination of flood water should be the first priority. Storm remediation and water restoration should be left to the professionals with the right equipment like flood pump.

Storm Damage Restoration

Storms and flooding can cause huge damages – water damage, roof damage, hail damage, and wind damage which consequently result to flooding, ground water, roof leak, ice damming, ice dams, river flooding, and more. The answer after storm damage is to do storm remediation or storm restoration, water restoration, home restoration, and business restoration.

Professional Storm Remediation

Damage such as hurricane damage causes negative effects – it could take away your roof or leave you with roof leaks which will cost a lot in roof repair. But there is a process of restoration after such – after all, people need to move on with life. The solution is to call professionals to do storm restoration or storm remediation. It is true that you can try to work on it by yourself, but this is only to a very small extent – such as doing water cleanup from flooding or minor roof repair.

What you need is a professional storm remediation. Storm restoration companies exist to help people do home restoration and water restoration that result from storm and hail damage. The experts usually come with powerful tools like a flood pump to clean up the water during storm remediation. If you choose to do it your own, how do you even start dealing with frozen pipes? So, call the storm remediation company in your State for assistance. We can control some issues in life, but some we cannot. When they hit, we can use professional restoration services to help us get back up!Visit www.SERVPROwichitafalls.com for more information on storm damage.

Tips For Preventing Frozen Pipes

Pipes on an outdoor wall with additional insulation to prevent them from freezing.

Living in North Texas, we don’t have to deal with the months of freezing temperatures that are typical in the northern parts of the country; however, we unfortunately still deal with frozen pipes on a regular basis. Homes in warmer climates tend to lack the insulation that is the standard in places with frigid winter temperatures, so whenever we experience freezing weather pipes are quickly frozen if precautions have not been taken. Frozen pipes are inconvenient and problematic. Along with preventing water flow into your home, they regularly burst and cause costly damages. Be better prepared for the next artic blast by following these frozen pipe prevention tips:

Keep faucets dripping to relieve pressure and prevent the pipes from freezing. Particularly important over night when your plumbing system is not being used frequently and the temperature is dropping.

Disconnect hoses on outdoor faucets and use faucet covers to prevent them from freezing.

Seal any leaks that might be allowing cold air inside your house, especially in areas that are close to pipes.

If you have some particularly vulnerable pipes you can use heat tape. Heat tape and heat cables are electrically powered heat sources that you wrap around pipes that are at risk for freezing. Like using any other type of heater, they will need to be monitored to ensure their safe use.

Try to keep your house at a constant temperature all day and night. Many people turn down thermostats when they go to bed, but night time is when your pipes are most likely to freeze. Opening cabinet doors, especially at night, allows the warm air in your home to circle around pipes and reduce their risk of freezing.

Additional insulation is one of the best choices when preparing your house for winter weather. Any pipes on outdoor walls or in areas with less insulation (i.e. attic) may need some foam or fiberglass sleeves from your local hardware store. Insulation will always be less expensive than a water damage, so the more insulation the better.

If you do experience a burst pipe this winter, call SERVPRO of Wichita Falls. We are a 24-hour emergency service business, and can have a professional on site within hours to help you get your home back to normal. Call us anytime at 940-263-1550.

Preventing Mold in the Bathroom

Mold in bathrooms is a common problem in almost every home. Darkness combined with excessive moisture provides the perfect conditions for consistent mold growth. Constantly cleaning and re-caulking, to keep a growth problem under control, can be time consuming and expensive. The best defense against mold is to prevent it from occurring in the first place. Here are a few tricks to help you stop mold growth in your bathroom:

Run the ventilation fan while you are showering, and leave it on for 15 minutes after. If you don’t have a fan open a window or use a dehumidifier.

Use a squeegee after a bath or shower to remove some of the excess moisture. Instead of a squeegee, a small towel can be used to dry any accumulated water.

Try to avoid keeping a lot of things inside of the bath/shower. They can hide mold growth as well as collecting water to promote it. Children’s toys are particularly notorious for growing mold, so be sure to dry them as much as possible and clean them regularly.

Fix leaky faucets and shower heads.

Use a shower curtain that can be put in the washing machine. There are also many mold-resistant liners available.

Clean out the shower and wash bathroom rugs regularly.

Check for any other signs of mold in the bathroom under the sink, behind the toilet, etc.

If you are consistently experiencing mold in your bathroom, regardless of how often you clean, then you may have a larger, hidden growth problem. Call SERVPRO of Wichita Falls at 940-263-1550, and one of our experts will be at your house to inspect the issue promptly.